Hebrews: To Whom was it Written

The title “To the Hebrews” designates Jews in distinction from Gentiles. This title was not originally a part of the letter. It may have been added in the second century, when the letters of the New Testament were assembled into a collection. It has been suggested that the title “To The Hebrews” was written on the outside of the script rolls to identify the document as the letter we know as the Letter to the Hebrews.

Since there is no greeting at the outset of the letter which identifies the original recipients, who they were can only be inferred from the internal evidence within the letter itself. The entire letter indicates the original recipients were a group of Jewish Christians who had endured persecution and who were therefore considering giving up their Christian faith to return to Judaism. They had suffered a severe persecution in which they had been made a public spectacle (cf. Hebrews 10:32-36). Their persecutors had publicly insulted and troubled them for sympathizing with other Christians who were being mistreated and imprisoned. The Jewish Christians themselves had not been imprisoned, but they did have their homes and property seized and confiscated. None of their number had been martyred for their faith in resisting sin, though they faced this possibility in the future (cf. Hebrews 12:4). To escape such persecution, they were considering abandoning the Christian faith and returning to Judaism. For this reason the author urged them not to throw away the confidence of their faith but to endure and stand fast. Then they would not be destroyed by God on the coming day of judgment but receive the fulfillment of God's promise of salvation (cf. Hebrews 10:35-39). The letter clarifies that the recipients were known to the author, who had spent some time with them (cf. Hebrews 13:18,19), and who was intending to return to them soon with Timothy (cf. Hebrews 13:23). The letter also indicates that this group of Jewish Christians had had some of their pastors and spiritual leaders die in the past (cf. Hebrews 13:7). The author reminded them to respect their former leaders for the Word of God that those leaders had taught them (cf. Hebrews 13:7). At the time the author wrote the letter, its recipients had other spiritual leaders to lead them. The author urged them to obey those leaders (cf. Hebrews 13:17), and he sent his greeting to those leaders (cf. Hebrews 13:24).

It cannot be stated with certainty where this group of persecuted Jewish Christians lived. The greeting in Hebrews 13:24, “Those from Italy greet you,” suggests that they lived in Italy, quite possibly within Rome itself. Apparently some members from the Jewish Christian congregation there in Italy and Rome were present with the author when he wrote the letter. Those members present with him sent their greeting back to their home congregation. The Jewish Christians who received the letter did have their own assembly and place of worship where they gathered (cf. Hebrews 10:25). It is possible, therefore, that the recipients were one of the house churches in Rome, whom Paul greeted in Romans 16:5,14,15.

Some have thought the Letter to the Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, for the letter speaks of the temple and its rituals with which Jewish Christians in Jerusalem would have been most familiar. The author of the letter, however, did not write about the temple (Greek naos) but about the tabernacle (Greek skene), the sacred tent that accompanied Moses and the Israelites through the wilderness. It seems the author wrote about the tabernacle and not the temple, for in describing the interior furnishings of the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place in which the ark of the covenant had been kept, he stated, “With regard to these things we cannot now speak in detail,” (Hebrews 9:5). He, nor anyone else, could discuss those details of the interior furnishings because they no longer existed. They could not be known from the existent temple in Jerusalem, with which the Jewish priests and people were most familiar. But Jewish Christians, even those who had never seen the temple in Jerusalem, would have been knowledgeable of the tabernacle with its priesthood and sacrifices from their Old Testament Scriptures. The recipients of the letter, therefore, need not have been in Jerusalem near the temple to understand by personal experience the significance of what the author wrote in his letter or to picture the priestly rituals and sacrifices described in the letter.

Another argument made in favor of Jerusalem as the place where the recipients of the letter lived is the persecution of Jewish Christians that took place there. It has been argued that the Jews' persecution of other Jews who had embraced Christ and Christianity was most severe there in Jerusalem. There the temptation for Jewish Christians to revert to Judaism was the strongest.

It is true that the ruling council of the Jews, the Sanhedrin, did initiate a terrible persecution of Jewish Christians. It began with the stoning of Stephen and turned against the whole church in Jerusalem (cf. Acts 7:54-8:3), scattering the Jewish Christians throughout Judea and Samaria. Saul, before his conversion and ministry as the apostle Paul, was the chief agent in carrying out the persecution of those Jewish Christians (cf. Acts 8:3; 9:1,2). But one only need be familiar with the persecutions that Paul himself and his co-workers suffered to know that the unbelieving Jews throughout the areas of Galatia and Macedonia were just as fanatical when it came to persecuting both Jews and Gentiles who had embraced Christianity and spread the gospel of Christ (cf. Acts 13:44-50; 14:1-6; 14:19; 17:1-14). While in Corinth Paul was extremely concerned about the faith of the Jewish and Gentile Christians in Thessalonica, who were being persecuted by the Jews there. Paul was fearful that because of their being persecuted the Christians in Thessalonica would be tempted to give up their faith (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5). Thus the persecution of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem is not an argument that requires the Letter to the Hebrews must have been written to Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. Jewish Christians were being persecuted in other places of the Roman empire as well.

Source:
http://www.christianinconnect.com/hebrews.htm